


Life or the Lion

by Fair_Feather_Friend



Series: Once a King [3]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, The Magicians (TV), The Magicians - Lev Grossman
Genre: Afterlife, Crossover, M/M, Narnia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:21:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23521462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fair_Feather_Friend/pseuds/Fair_Feather_Friend
Summary: Quentin dies and finds himself faced with a lion.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Series: Once a King [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1687207
Kudos: 8





	Life or the Lion

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my drafts long enough to be about to be deleted. It started off as a fun idea, but nasty comments... :'( So I just put on a non-ending. It was going to be more.

The beauty of all life surrounded Quentin. He'd seen it before, with all its pain and sharp edges, the sweetness, the joy, all that was good. He held it inside himself. An experience that was impossible to forget.

Quentin opened his eyes saw Fillory.

Not the absurdly flawed Fillory in which he'd lived and ruled and quested in. Not the sanitised Fillory of the books, that the Chatwins had travelled to, and that had saved him so many times. 

This was closest to the Fillory in which he and Eliot had experienced the beauty of all life, but lacking in its sharp edges and pain. The perfect, idealised Fillory he'd always dreamed of. 

And now... Now... He'd died. Sacrificed himself. And this must be heaven. There were far fewer clouds and harps than he'd expected. 

And much more lions.

The Lion was a huge, golden beast. It was everything that he'd hoped Ember and Umber to be. Regal and with such a sense of presence.

"Welcome, Quentin, Son of Adam." The voice was not like a man's. It was deeper, wilder, and stronger; a sort of heavy, golden voice. 

Quentin approached gazing around in wonder. "Where am I? Is this Fillory?"

"It is Narnia," the lion replied. "And I am Aslan. Fillory was but a pale shadow of Narnia, just as Narnia itself was but a shadow of this real Narnia."

"Uh... okay," Quentin tried to take it in. This wasn't how he expected the afterlife to be at all. He'd been to the underworld and it was not as lush and green as this. "I'm dead?"

"Unfortunately so," Aslan replied. "You gave selflessly to save others, and so you have earned a place in Narnia."

"Q!" It was Eliot, taking off at a run towards Quentin. Of course if this was heaven Eliot would be here, which must have meant Eliot too was dead, only he seemed more... less... real than anything else here. He looked far more dishevelled and imperfect than anything else. 

"Eliot." Quentin embraced him and he was solid. Eliot. 

"Quentin I..."

"King Eliot, you do not belong here yet," the lion rumbled.

"I'm not ever going to belong here," Eliot replied. "Narnia's a terrible place, it's a sanitised children's storybook of a land. They do give children wine though, so there is that. There's no sex."

"You speak as if that is a bad thing. There is no need for such things in Narnia," Aslan replied.

"There's no magic," Eliot said.

"There is magic in all things, Son of Adam," Aslan then addressed Quentin. "Come with me and you will find a place you belong. There is no pain, no suffering. All you have spent your life seeking will finally be yours. There is peace."

"So, yeah, I've to choose between the talking lion, who might just want to eat me, and... um... or is it you, Eliot, or another trick?"

"Your sacrifice saved your friend," Aslan rumbled. "Yet still he has found a way to be here.

"Q, we grew old together. You're not even thirty. You should have your whole life ahead of you. Come back with me."

"Can I?" Quentin asked.

"You cannot return to where you have died. You no longer exist there."

"Q, we can find a way."

Quentin looked beyond the lion, where all the wonders he'd hoped for and dreamed of lay. Peace. There were people there he could see, Kings and Queens. A unicorn. Talking animals. A magical land awaited him. He felt weightless. And then he looked at Eliot. Eliot who had the expression of a man who'd lost everything.

Quentin remembered a beautiful life together. And deaths that were very much not. His heart broken when they returned and Eliot's rejection. The pain of looking into the eyes of his best friend and knowing he was not there anymore. There were no guarantees that even if he did return they'd be able to make things work.

Quentin made his choice.

**Author's Note:**

> In The Last Battle Aslan said a few things. One was the Narnia is a shadow of True Narnia. And I liked the idea that Fillory in turn is a shadow of Narnia. There's Chatwin's Fillory, actual Fillory, new Fillory, and TV Fillory which has weird sexual stuff in an attempt to be mature. 
> 
> I loved how Quentin loved Fillory with all his heart and how it saves him, and how he's such a fanboy, even though it doesn't end up being what he hoped it would be. There's a purity there to his love and we're told time and time again that as adults we should set such childish things away. And things like sex and violence etc get added to make them more mature. I think the TV series, at times, descended into crudeness just for the sake of it. Haha god jism, haha world seed vagina. And just the dark takes on stuff. 
> 
> There's another story of how Eliot actually ends up here.


End file.
